I finally got to try the Gastro Cart in downtown Denver today, and ohhh yeah.
It’s just a little silver lunch cart on the corner of 18th and Curtis. They could be selling hot dogs. There wasn’t an awning, or a seating area.
But they’re working an angle, honey: it’s good food.
Run by two former line-cooks at Table 6, the Gastro Cart serves a menu that is (wisely) limited in scope. On the regular menu are chicken tacos, veggie tacos, a lamb gyro, and a side. There’s also a daily special. All this week, it’s the Haitian-style pork slider, with half the sale proceeds going to the American Red Cross for earthquake relief efforts. (Decent, right?)
The execution is incredibly low-budge. Specials are advertised on Twitter and Facebook. The menu is a photocopied quarter-page of white paper. Your pay options? Cash only.
The execution is also totally delicious. I got the special, the pork slider, and it was a really good little sammich. (With homemade pickle - cute.) Straightforward, but not simple-minded, not totally obvious. A surprisingly sophisticated combination of flavors.
I took one bite and thought, This could be habit-forming.
The Handsome Man and I are going back tomorrow for actual lunch.
I’m already loving this concept.
A movement towards really good street food. It activates my imagination: gastro carts and foodie stands on every other downtown corner, serving excellent, unfussy dishes at reasonable prices. Denver would become known for its sublime options for edgy corner dining. Our residents would come to define everyday eats as real food that supports local micro-businesses (and, preferably, local producers of produce, dairy and meat).
Let's face it - it’s only a matter of time before I find myself in a hairnet, guys. We might as well start getting our heads around it.
“To cook something, to serve it, to share it with others - each is far more meaningful than just a job, a pleasure, or even necessity. Through food we express love, we bring comfort and hope, we forge new relationships and strengthen old bonds. Food reaffirms not only our humanity, but the joy of being alive.” - Chef Marcus Samuelsson
At the outset, I want to make it plain: When I say, “I heart...xyz” it’s an expression of the kind of adoration that stems from affection and appreciation. It’s not about lust, or even romantic love. It’s really about admiration, I guess. Personal heroes. Perceived kindred spirits. Fantasy dinner guests. You get the idea.
That said, I heart Chef Marcus Samuelsson. In addition to being an award-winning chef, Samuelsson is a cookbook author, tv personality and ambassador for the US Fund for UNICEF. And even when I call him “my boyfriend,” what I mean is, “I heart him!”
Photo from Google Images
He is physically beautiful. Oh, yes sir, he is.
Photo from blackpreneur.net
And he’s clearly talented in his field. Sez Wikipedia: "At 24, Marcus became executive chef of Aquavit, and soon after that became the youngest ever to receive a three-star restaurant review from The New York Times." From Samuelsson’s website:
Samuelsson was honored with the James Beard Foundation Award for ‘Rising Star Chef’ in 1999 and ‘Best Chef, New York’ in 2003. He was also celebrated as one of “The Great Chefs of America” by The Culinary Institute of America.
Born in Ethiopia, adopted, and raised in Sweden, Samuelsson manages (among other projects) a Japanese restaurant in NYC. You know how I appreciate a straddler of worlds.
He’s married to a sista, the gorgeous, Ethiopian-born, Holland-raised model Maya Haile.
Photos from Maya Haile’s Facebook fan page
I want to dress in couture with her, and travel by private jet together.
But this isn’t about any of that.
It’s about the human connection to food. The complex symbolism of food. Food as identity-marker. Our man Marcus gets it.
Submitted as evidence: He is the host of a three-episode PBS special called The Meaning of Food. First aired in 2004, the show is available today via insta-watch on Netflix. And it is just so beautiful.
Sez PBS: “The Meaning of Food is an exploration of culture through food. What we consume, how we acquire it, who prepares it, who’s at the table, and who eats first is a form of communication that is rich with meaning.”The show dashes from point to point on the globe, introducing interesting people and their food-ways.
The first episode is “Food and Life”. Want a taste?
We learn that death row inmates are allowed to request specifically what they’d like for their last meal, and we visit with a man who for 11 years cooked the last meal for prisoners on death row. (Deal with that. The guy has a hard time talking about it, years later even. He had nightmares when it was his job.) In his case, anyway, the state tried as best they could to provide the requested meal. We see some of the menus. Sez the cook: “What if that was your son? Your brother? Would you rather he got a good last meal? ...Someone you loved... How would you feel then?”
From the perspective of a Muslim-American HS senior, we learn about fasting during Ramadan, in the Muslim faith, and the feasting of Eid (pronounced “Eed,” which is hard for me to remember, for some reason).
We hear from a Holocaust survivor about “cooking with the mouth”. That’s what you do when you have nothing to eat, or what female prisoners at a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia did, telling each other their favorite recipes in detail in stolen moments, nights in the bunks. (There’s a cookbook of these recipes, if you think you can stand it. Many of the recipes are convoluted or incomplete. The original manuscript was hand-sewn.)
Seriously, if you think you can get through this show without weeping, you’re a badder MF than I am.
That’s what I call good television.
And that’s just Episode One!
There’s also “Food and Culture”, where we talk about heritage and food and identity. Sez my boyfriend:
“Where are you from?” It’s not an easy answer...everywhere I’ve been, everything I am, is reflected in my feelings about food: what I like, what I cook, what I consider good to eat. Food is a form of communication, rich with meaning...what you eat tells me, better than a photograph, who you are.
And, finally, “Food and Family”: “Gathering food, preparing it, eating it together - through these small daily rituals, bonds are created and families defined.” - Marcus Samuelsson
All delicious. So maybe this post should be titled, “I Heart The Meaning of Food”. That is not an untrue statement. The show is deep.
But I love that Marcus Samuelsson hosted it.
Samuelsson is also the featured chef on an episode of another favorite tv show, After Hours with Daniel Boulud. Chef Boulud jokes about Samuelsson: “He gets high when he eats Ethiopian food.” I like the idea of getting high off of a meal.
Plus, when I read this on Wikipedia...
On November 24, 2009, Samuelsson served as guest chef for the first state dinner of the Barack Obama presidency. [!] The dinner, in honor of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the country of India, was served on the South Lawn and largely vegetarian. Samuelsson reportedly sought to combine sustainable and regional foods which reflect the best in American cuisine yet evoke the flavors of India. Harvesting fresh vegetables and herbs from the White House Garden, Samuelsson’s menu included red lentil soup, roasted potato dumplings, and green curry prawns.
...I cried out, “He is SO my boyfriend!”
I’m thinking if I became an award-winning author, I could date Marcus Samuelsson. You know, if we weren’t both married and, oh yeah, complete strangers.
Meanwhile, my blog seems the appropriate place to give him my heart.
And the next time I’m in NYC or Chicago, I’ll be giving him my stomach, as well.
His latest book is New American Table, a cookbook of regional American cuisine. Can't wait to check it out.
Tantalizing aromas of rosemary and tarragon, tender morsels of chicken, the comfort of egg noodles, and a rich and flavorful broth. Good for what ails us.
But oh, the idle shit-talking.
It’s so easy to criticize. Today at Soup Group, I once again was the subject of a dozen needless second-guesses.
When I say that the Soup Group made “Classic Chicken Noodle Soup” today, please understand that “Classic” is a marketing gimmick.
After all, “Classic” is a fairly meaningless term when it comes to a dish like chicken soup. Whose “classic”? My “classic”? Yours? My “classic" very easily could be different from your “classic”, if your mama is from Sweden and my mama’s from South Louisiana. Both you and I think our mama’s “classic” chicken noodle soup is delectable. And potentially we’re both right.
Meaningless term.
But the word “Classic" adds a little something, in the eyes of our customers. More than a year ago, we realized that our “Beef and Vegetable Soup” didn’t sell nearly as well as our “Hearty Beef and Vegetable Soup” sold. Our customers appear to be drawn to an embellished title just like they're drawn to our international titles, like “West African Chicken Peanut” and “Moroccan Lamb Harira”. Good sellers all.
Responsive producers that we are, Soup Group has taken to employing descriptive language for promotional purposes. We’re using adjectives to sell soup.
Classic Chicken Noodle Soup. Good enough.
Leave it alone, Soup Group.
But no. They want the word “Classic" to be prescriptive.
Tomatoes? In the “Classic” Chicken Noodle Soup? they scoff.
For my part, I'm not going to get caught up in what "Classic" means, what I mean by Classic, versus what you mean by Classic, or what our customers might think of as Classic. I don't need to get caught up in that. I'm prepared to deliver on a more fundamental level. Our recipe will deliver on what is promised by every concept of “Classic": This chicken noodle soup will feel familiar, it will be delicious, and you will find it deeply satisfying.
Leave it alone, Soup Group.
They don't leave it alone. They make little comments, they express little doubts, and the way they finally make peace with each little criticism is to say to themselves, and each other, “Well, if that’s what the recipe says...”
I’m not above employing it myself. “Well, that’s what the recipe calls for...” I’ll say. Jalapenos? they'll ask. Why jalapenos? “It’s in the recipe,” I’ll murmur. And they are comforted.
It’s entirely true that it’s in the recipe. But what they don’t seem to understand is that Iam the one who makes the recipes. It’s part of my set of weekly duties that include recipe selection and conversion and dissemination. In addition, I try to make sure that our recipe is accurate and delicious.
For some reason, when I started doing the recipes for Soup Group, accuracy in recipe conversion was my first goal, and it took some time to achieve it. It took time to get my brain to do math again (fractions!), and it took time to develop sufficient attention to detail, including a triple-check protocol, to ensure that our time in the kitchen wouldn’t turn out drastically screwed up in expensive and embarrassing ways.
Soon enough it became apparent that accuracy alone wasn’t the whole story. Some of our soups turned out better than others, and it didn’t take long for me to figure out which elements made for a tastier final product - browning, for example. Fresh herbs. Homemade stock. But even after I knew better, I’d follow a recipe exactly when I was converting it to bulk.
I’d be thinking to myself, “That would taste better if you browned the onions”, or “Why doesn’t this recipe call for a can of green chiles to add a little character?” At home, I would follow my instincts and cook it differently when I was making food for Handsome or guests. But when I was making recipes for Soup Group, I’d go ahead and copy the recipe’s instructions as they were written.
Our customers weren’t having it. I noticed in pretty short order that it was the recipes I’d had doubts about that resulted in disappointing sales.
Time to start doctoring it up, I decided.
These days, I go through the original recipe and think about cooking it, step by step, and consider what might be missing, what might be overdone. I think about what I’d do at home, and I make adjustments accordingly.
(While I view this approach as an investment in our future success, I'm also trying to spare myself the criticism that invariably comes my way when the soup doesn't turn out well.)
Many of my Soup Group friends still get nervous on the journey. That’s why they take refuge in the idea of a recipe, I guess. And why they can't stop voicing these little criticisms.
I, however, reject the notion that some cookbook is necessarily more valuable than our Soup Group's years of experience cooking our soups, in our kitchen, with our shoppers, and our cooks, and our skillets and pots and spatulas and ladles. At some point, even I have to give myself some credit for our body of work, this hands-on experience. Seems to me that trusting yourself and trusting the food should trump using a recipe as anything more than a guideline. We're making soup, here. There's a lot of room for success.
So leave it alone, Soup Group.
By the way, I was totally vindicated in that today's soup is delightful.
It’s embarrassing enough that I watch Cougar Town. It’s appalling that I enjoy it. And I’m going to have to kill myself now that I truly am looking forward to Lisa Kudrow guest starring this week.
That I’m thankful to hulu.com’s advertisers for interrupting After Hours to tell me about it means I’m already dead and paying for my sins in hell.
Currently playing on the screen of my laptop, which is perched on a dedicated kitchen shelf, is After Hours with Daniel Boulud on hulu.com. It’s a tv series that aired on the Mojo network for three seasons, from 2006 to 2008. The premise is that the famous and charismatic French chef, Daniel Boulud, invites other famous chefs to dine decadently with him after-hours at a series of rotating restaurants in NYC, LA, New Orleans and Miami. The guest list, which also includes the random actress, sports figure or author, also changes with each 25-minute show. The show features the prep and the dinner.
I’ve sort of been devouring it.
There’s a moment that has stayed with me from the Season 1 episode at Cru in NYC. It’s not a food-related moment. The invited author Jay McInerney takes heat from the other guests for name-dropping when he’s telling a story and says, “My hostess, the Princess of Malaysia, she only drinks first growth Bordeaux, so automatically there were only eight wines...” blah blah blah
(Yes, incidentally, that’s a direct quote, and the award-winning writer did use the redundant pronoun that always frustrated my mom about my elementary school grammatical habits.)
The rest of the guests hassled McInerney for name-dropping, but I’m completely absorbed with the apparent reality that being an award-winning author gains you entree to dinner with a princess. For real? I was impressed that McInerney had scored an invite to the After Hours table. Princesses? Who knew?
This tells me that I have not been trying nearly hard enough to get my writing published. My only defense is that I didn’t know I was risking dinner with the princess.
On tonight's menu: Smoked Oyster and Bacon Stew. It's a pantry-based recipe, as in, I don't feel like going to the grocery store, what's in the pantry already? We'll see how it goes.
My family has an annual New Year’s tradition that I love.
Our longstanding custom is for Mom and Dad to host the Colorado relatives (i.e., Dad, his two siblings and their families) on January first for a New Year’s celebration where Mom serves seafood gumbo. There is no separating these elements, and there will be no compromising: It will be January first, Mom and Dad will be hosting, and on the menu will be Mom’s rapturous seafood gumbo. This has being going on for over 35 years, without exception.
It’s who we are. It’s in my blood.
And if you understand that, you might understand that as far as I’m concerned, it’s not really the New Year until all the gumbo is gone.
Mom makes a big pot, cher. Some years, if we haven’t crowded the dinner table with out-of-town relatives, extended in-laws and cherished friends, there is some gumbo leftover at the end of the night. That represents a jackpot for the Denver relatives (i.e., me and Frere) who get sent home with tupperware containers of rice and gumbo, rolls, sometimes salad.
The homemade goodness of the take-home gumbo provides a nice cushion against the last of the celebrating and socializing that will go on before normal routines are resumed. Because Oh my God, am I tired by January second. I love my family and I am so glad to see so many cherished friends during the holiday season. This year was another year of blessed, plus blessed. But it was an advanced-level social schedule, especially for a reclusive curmudgeon like myself, especially when you add in the rich foods, late nights and extra boozing.
On our walk last night, The Handsome Man and I were comparing notes on how raggedy we felt.
“I feel like I have something in my stomach, and it’s hot, and it’s just been sitting there for the last five days.”
“I feel like there’s a film all over my skin, just a thin layer of toxins, like I’m dirty.”
Yeah, once again Handsome and I were under-equipped for the entirely welcome holiday onslaught. Fortunately, we’re through the insanity now, and back on the also entirely welcome solid ground of our normal level (i.e., intermediate level) of socializing. That’s weekend plans for big events, weeknite plans with small groups, easy-peasy professional obligations, you know.
Fittingly, Joe and I are polishing off the last of the gumbo tonight. In honor of the new year, I’ve been reviewing the year that has passed, and giving more thought to the year ahead. And I find I sort of want to do a midnight countdown and sing Auld Lang Syne.
Handsome and I made a point of going out to brunch today, having realized a little belatedly that this is the last weekend of the year 2009, and thus the last opportunity for weekend brunch in 2009.
We've been dining in a lot recently, cooking at home much more frequently than was typical at the beginning of 2009. I'm happy to report that they've been mostly tasty and presentable, these kitchen-based efforts of mine. I feel a sense of accomplishment about that, having wanted for years to improve my skills in that direction.
But my attempts to make a good home-based brunch are more than skill-oriented. I'm learning to make brunch out of an abstract, reactionary belligerence.
Why aren't there more options for delicious, casual, bruncheon dining out in central Denver? (I just made up that word. "Bruncheon". Or maybe I'm bringing it back. Like how your grandma called lunch "luncheon".)
Even on the weekend, I don't feel like driving out to Lakewood or Boulder for a quality casual brunch. Especially when I live in what I consider to be the city center, the heart of the metropolitan area. That not just geographical snobbery, or hometown pride. It's population numbers and demographics. We should be able to produce a better-than-just-decent brunch here. There should be a whole set of options for delicious brunch in Denver.
Instead, I go to places, even places that have come highly recommended, and I think, "Well, shit. I could've done better than this at home." That is not how I like to feel at the end of a meal I'm paying for. I don't burn the potatoes. I don't cram people into my dining room. I don't overly sweeten and salten and fatten my cooking to make up for what I might be lacking in skill or the food might be lacking in freshness.
Offhand, I can think of three restaurants in town that originally seemed promising but ultimately just didn't deliver.
And Denver patrons piss me off, because each one of the restaurants that come to mind as disappointments is still open, and at each one of them, there will be a wait for a table every Saturday at noon. I mean a wait with a line out the door.
Make that four restaurants.
I drive by this one restaurant, with its line of patrons that have agreed to wait outside for mediocre brunch in an hour, and I want to heckle them. "Too bad you can't fry eggs at home..."
For real.
So, basically, my at-home brunch is an act of resistance.
Yes, in my imaginary world where it's me against the tyranny of bad food, I'm taking action.
Anyway, it takes something special to lure me out for brunch these days - the company of a good girlfriend, an outrageously good review, a compelling proximity to my house.
Or the reliability of what's tried and true.
Enter Le Central, where the host greets Handsome by name, and we're willing to wait a few minutes for an intimate, wobbly two-top on the invariably sunny patio. You can go in heels, you can go in jeans, you can go with the whole fam damily, you can go a little hungover. The prices are affordable without feeling cheap. The food is consistent without feeling routine. The vibe is casual without being grungy. The ambience is evocatively francais without being intimidating.
Le Central was the obvious choice for brunch today. It's lovely to linger over a meal, sharing bites and munching on crusty bread. As a fan of noontime drinking le weekend, I always appreciate the arrival of my white wine flight, four petite glasses of monochromatic three-ounce selections from the wine list. We tend to stay a while. Today, two different parties were seated, ate lunch, and departed while Handsome and I and several other tables sipped and nibbled. They don't get it, I thought to myself.
I have aggressive at-home cooking goals for 2010, or I should say, aggressive goals for culinary skill-building. I'm really excited about learning more and getting better. I've been enjoying poring over cookbooks, organizing recipe files, and conducting internet research. I've been watching more cooking shows and talking food with a wider variety of people. I love it when dinner tastes amazing and looks attractive and my guests take pleasure in eating with us.
I also love a place that makes me feel glad I chose to eat out.
Happy Last Brunch of 2009! Hope you chose it well!
Wednesdays, I mostly come home from Soup Group smelling like sauteed onions. Last Wednesday, when we made the wine soup, I came home smelling of Christmas: cloves and cinnamon and honey and burgundy wine. It was a delightfully aromatic cooking experience.
The soup freezer is full, and Soup Group is on hiatus until January, freeing up us volunteers to handle our Christmas preparations and bask in the enjoyment of the holidays. Personally, I'm going to be spending time making gifts and enjoying company and, apparently, recovering from excessive revelry. Ah, the holidays.
Frere had a birthday party last night and it impacted my morning today, if you feel me. Turns out I'm not a grown up, as evidenced by my inability to refuse a drink. Foolish girl.
Nice party, though. I never know what to expect with Frere. Or, rather, what I expect from Frere, frankly, is to embarrass me. All too often, I'm right on the money: The house will be messy, from clutter, or neglect, or any one of a number of home improvement projects left unfinished. The food will not be ready until hours after the invite time, even for a dinner party planned days in advance. Worst of all, Frere will make mean commentary about me, or give me backhanded compliments in front of his friends.
So why go?
I'll do you one better at the end of 2009: Why include him as a part of my life at all? He is incredibly narcissistic, he stresses and exploits my parents, he has a hands-off parenting style that is truly disturbing sometimes. He makes epic bad decisions, monumental both in scale and in impact. He is nimble and swift like a ninja when it comes to avoiding accountability for his personal failings. He's kind of a jerk.
There is a long list of my complaints with Frere, beginning, maybe, with the time he tried to drown me in a water fountain at age 3, and spanning thirty years' worth of bullshit at varying levels, including an extremely rude interaction he had with The Handsome Man just last month (since which time I've been avoiding him).
But he's mon frere. He's my brother. And no matter what proclamation I might make in anger about excising him from my heart like a malignant tumor, it's just not possible.
Not because of my exhaustive love for his three perfect daughters, who give my life a whole other beautiful dimension than I would have known to ask for or miss in their absence.
Not because of the way my mom worries after the relationship between her only two children, and her heartache when she knows Frere and I are not getting along.
Not even because of the fact that Frere wants me in his life and, in his own way, values and likes me.
No. Those are all good reasons, I guess, but the thing that really keeps me in his life, or keeps me keeping him in my life, is that he's there regardless. As A described it so perfectly, "You keep bumping into him in your head." Yes.
And then there's the likelihood that one day, he will be all that remains and all that I'll have of my natal nuclear family. That was a happy place for me, a safe place, and a very specific place. My growing-up experience feels to me intimately unique, like nobody else could ever understand it. (Ironically, I think everybody feels that way about their growing-up experience.) It's where I first felt like I made sense. My family was a context that didn't just surround me, it explained me, it was part of what made me who I am.
Frere's my older brother - he was there for all of it. He understands. The tv shows we watched, the rules we flouted, the songs we sang, the tricks we played, the fears we shared, the fevers we endured. When I'm talking about my childhood and I say "We..." (as in "We loved that place!" or "We hated that guy!") I'm referring to "me and Frere".
And because Frere's my older brother, he was also the bossa me. I didn't eat cheeseburgers until I was 10 years old because Frere told me they were nasty...and that was sufficient recon for me - I didn't in all that time feel the need to try one for myself.
Our views and choices and even our recollection and framing of past shared events differ dramatically now, but...
There is no me without him. That's just a fact.
I had a good time at Frere's party. And when his friends toasted his best aspects, I was happy to raise my glass.
Gobs of green peas double-pureed with potatoes, onions, veggie stock, coconut milk, ginger, green chiles, coriander, roasted cumin, cilantro, lemon juice...
It was a pain in the ass to make. But the vegetarian raved about it, so maybe we got some payoff.
Tonight the family celebrated my niece X’s 9th birthday at...wait for it...Casa Bonita! (At least it wasn’t Chuck E. Cheese.)
Frere and I regularly hosted our birthday parties at Casa Bonita when we were small (through, like, 1985 when Celebrity Sports Center and its sweet-ass water slides became the venue of choice). For all the years we held our “Destination: Casa Bonita” parties, Frere and I and all our little friends thought it was great and so much fun.
Frere’s children are just as enamored of Casa Bonita as Frere and I were as kids, so I’ve been back a few times as an adult. My niece Fine, who is now 14, had birthday parties there as a kidlet. I’ve gone with out-of-town guests who come thinking it’s something they want to see (they are frequently disappointed, though it’s a disappointment you can laugh through).
On the whole, Casa Bonita is remarkably unchanged from 25 years ago: the strolling mariachi band, the waiter-summoning flags on the tables, the terrible food, the cowboy cliff divers, the rampaging gorilla, who gave me a thrill tonight as he dashed past me and Handsome on the bridge.
Nowadays, I don’t really dig on skee ball. (I totally used to.) A glow-in-the-dark necklace doesn’t make my week. (It totally used to.) And the joint is located in a strip mall, people. It’s impossibly gaudy. The food has always been bad beyond belief.
But the kids were gleeful and adventurous, and even Handsome and I giggled our way through Black Bart’s cave before we left.
Plus, we scored the pink party pavilion at the top of the ramp -- remember the ramps? -- all to ourselves.
Pretty sweet.
Daddo enjoying the festivities Photo credit: The Preferred Daughter
Rich, flavorful stock plays host to a crowded gathering of tender cubes of beef, red kidney beans, pasta shells, green peas, green beans, celery, carrots and tomatoes, seasoned with onions, garlic, fresh basil, fresh parsley and bay leaves.
My Soup Group colleagues are a cultured bunch. They support the visual arts, music, dance, and especially theatre. I realized today that several of them hold subscriptions with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. So naturally, theatre reviews feature frequently in our soup-making conversation: what shows we've seen, what shows we want to see, what shows we recommend the others go see.
(Arts patronage is only the tip of the cool, cool iceberg that is these ladies' spare time activities. They travel internationally, they get outdoorsy in the mountains, they host anniversary blowouts. They all have other volunteer obligations that they take seriously and where they make a serious contribution. They're passionately committed to their families. I'm taking notes.)
Today Elizabeth announced that she had been to see Spring Awakening at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. We were instantly interested. Mom said she'd heard that the NYC production had received mixed reviews, and Jodi piped up that she'd heard a review on National Public Radio that the show was pretty strange. All of us were eager to hear from Elizabeth what the story was about and what she thought of the local production.
It only got more interesting when Elizabeth began by saying that she had left, walked out, at intermission.
People just about stopped working. I know I put down my spatula and turned around to look at her. Elizabeth is a dedicated patron of the arts, so even a schlock production wouldn't put her off that much. Furthermore, she's worldly and a little tough, I think it's safe to say. She has not yet struck me as the type to shy away from ugly truths. What on earth could this musical have done in the first two acts that would provoke an Elizabeth to leave without seeing the resolution?
Well, she said the play dealt with themes of adolescent sexual awakening, incest and child abuse; and she talked about the juxtaposition of quasi-19th-century costumes and modern rock music that she didn't connect with. We waited for her to say more, because so far, to me at least, that didn't seem like enough to run off someone like Elizabeth. And indeed, she went on to say that the deal-breaker was what she described as a very graphic rape scene early in the play, maybe in the first act. And with that explanation, our soup group seemed to understand.
I understood. I mean, I can understand that you don't want to look at some things, some times. I overheard Elizabeth saying a little later that there are ways to convey violence without explicitly enacting it for the audience. And that is certainly true.
It got me thinking, though.
For one, I got tangled up in the unanswerable question of "what makes good art". Sometimes there's an artistic bravery in presenting negative things in all their graphic realism. Sometimes art makes a greater impact when the audience is allowed, encouraged or required to use their own imaginations to fill in some of the blanks. There's no one way, no "right" answer. And to my mind, asking the question is only a philosophical exercise anyhow. We as a people should always leave room for artistic license - I believe it's vitally important that society grant artists the freedom to express their vision. (I'm pretty sure that's what I believe. There is art that tests this value of mine.)
Elizabeth's tale of walking out also got me thinking about the responsibility to self that any one of us might have to look away sometimes.
And about the tension between the personal responsibility to look away sometimes, and the social obligation not to look away. (Ever?)
And about the privilege it is to have the option of looking away.
And about the role of censorship in art and in media.
I saw a girl die on YouTube. I'm more than embarrassed that I don't know enough about world politics to remember which nation-in-conflict she lived/died in. She might have been Palestinian, she might have been Iranian. She was very pretty, and there was war in the streets, and she was just a bystander, but a stray bullet struck and killed her. It killed her in front of her dad and her brother and someone videotaping the violence. We see her fall and her eyes glaze over. We see the men with her cradling her and begging her to respond, and we see them begin to howl when the blood starts pouring from her mouth and her nose and maybe from her eyes, too.
I shouldn't have watched that, I immediately thought to myself when it was over. And I'm not talking about government censorship, here. I'm not saying it shouldn't have been available for watching. (Separate issue.) I'm saying that my own personal peace-of-mind patrol should have been on higher alert and stopped me from pressing the "play" button.
But there is a question that raises for me, and it's a question similar to the one that gets raised in arguments about government censorship: If something terrible is happening, why should I be protected from seeing it? How is the fact of an event's atrocity the argument that I shouldn't see it? If anyone has to bear witness, then why should I be spared? If it's reality, and I want the truth...
Why should I protect myself? Why should I look away?
Why do we look away? I'm reminded of images of the burning towers on 9/11/2001, and how the networks edited out the people who were jumping/falling from the windows on the upper floors. The fact that people were dying that way is completely brutal. And maybe on top of all of the other horror and carnage and shock of 9/11, we didn’t need to see people falling to their deaths.
But what’s that language - “didn’t need to see”? Why don’t I say what we mean: “Maybe on top of all of the other horror and carnage and shock of 9/11, people’s minds and psyches wouldn’t be able to handle it. Maybe we would have been irreversibly damaged by seeing it.”
It's to some extent an individual matter, though, what’s damaging. Because to some extent it's a question of what the human mind can stand, that is, what any one human mind can stand. There do exist some broad, obvious parameters that we mostly agree on as a society about what's highly disturbing - for example, apparently, the broadcasting of Americans falling to their deaths as a result of a terrorist act. Most often, though, individuals themselves make the best judge of what their own mind/psyche/spirit can handle.
(I am aware that this doesn't even address those who don't have a choice about what they're exposed to, who have no control over their exposure to whatever daily horror might be engulfing them. And that's not a separate issue.)
I guess a lot of us have learned to put some limits on what we take in. (Those of us with a choice in the matter, anyway.) Of course, on the far end of that spectrum are ostriches - those who bury their heads in the sand so they don’t have to see what’s scary and acknowledge that it's happening.
I can't help but think that maybe we should strive to be stronger than that. Stronger of heart, stronger of stomach, sounder in mind.
Shouldn’t we?
I’m not going to link to the video of that girl’s death in the streets because I tend to avoid linking to anything that’s notable because of its negativity. I’m not going to participate even in the promotion that comes from saying, “This is so gross/wrong/horrific, have a look.” This ain't a news outlet.
I am going to link to a really thoughtful and thought-provoking short film called “The Falling Man” that addresses the absence of jumpers/fallers from the images of 9/11. It’s tough stuff, but maybe just tough enough. Consider it in the vein of a healthy workout for a spirit striving to be strong enough to handle a range of life’s realities.
There was a time in my adult life when I would spend Thanksgiving with my grandmother, Meemo, my mom's mom.
It was a tradition that began after the weakest Thanksgiving ever, Thanksgiving 1997. I had graduated from college, dropped out of grad school, and moved back to Denver. That year, my parents bailed out to the mountains for Thanksgiving with my uncle and aunt, leaving me and my brother stunned to find that we were on our own for Thanksgiving, being explicitly notinvited to join the elders at elevation. Frere and I tried (a little belligerently) to rally. We'll have our own Thanksgiving, we said. We'll do it ourselves.
So with Frere, and my best pal, and Frere's young family, I celebrated Thanksgiving 1997 with a late and lousy meal at my parents' house, where I was living at the time. Some important things were overcooked, some important things were undercooked, and both cheer and ambience were noticeably absent from our proceedings. I vowed internally to have a better option next year, and with gritted teeth, started to craft a plan for a meaningful Thanksgiving tradition of my own.
And I was successful in that goal. Every year thereafter for Thanksgiving, I'd fly down to Meemo's house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For a few days, I would visit with family, watch cable, and be overfed. I'd spend hours cooking Creole specialties with Meemo in her pretty, yellow kitchen. I'd spend hours lolling on her bed with her watching tv after dark (we liked Emeril, Wheel of Fortune and the news). I relished the hours I got to spend hearing stories about her life and telling her stories about my life. And on Thanksgiving Day, Meemo and I would gather with the relatives at my aunt's house to celebrate with a decadent feast fit for kings, or Romans, or Southerners, I guess. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I went alone and basked in the attention. I went with my boyfriend in 2000, and came back subsequent years with that same handsome man, now playing the role of husband.
Then in 2005, three days before my 30th birthday, my grandmother passed away suddenly.
(And I still want to kick somebody.)
So, naturally, I spent Thanksgiving 2005 and Thanksgiving 2006 surly and isolated and drinking about it.
But in the last few years, I have come to understand that's not how Meemo would want me to play it. I never thought I was "honoring her memory" by acting that way, I just didn't know what else to do on Thanksgiving Day when I was supposed to have plans with her. Mom finally called me out, at some point, and I had to agree, Yeah, Meemo would want me to hold my head up. If she could weigh in on it, Meemo probably would want me to spend Thanksgiving with "Alta" -- my mom. Thanksgiving with Alta is something Meemo would love to do, if she could.
So in the last couple of years, I've been showing up for Thanksgiving dinner with my Mom & Dad, brother, nieces, and other local family and friends. I say "showing up" because while I typically aim to scintillate in social situations (youknowhowwedo), I'm nothing but a presence on Thanksgiving. I'll put on a dress, I'll bring mashed potatoes, I'll bow my head for prayer. But I'm waiting for it to be over.
Thanksgiving 2009? I'm not aiming for a lot more than showing up again this year. Frere's divorce has just become final, my uncle recently had to file for bankruptcy, the Handsome Man and I are entering another holiday season childless and not pregnant. Thanksgiving 2009 and I are hardly making eye contact at this point.
But here's one thing I plan to do this year to try and make the holiday a little special for me. I'm thinking maybe this year I'll have the heart to come home and watch the last and only video I took of Meemo, from Thanksgiving 2004 -- which was an awesome Thanksgiving, if it had to be the last one. It was great. And from it, I have my grandma on video, talking one-on-one with me about her visit to Denver the previous summer, and about her childhood in New Roads, and about her satisfaction with her life.
I haven't watched it since 2005, but I remember that in the video, Meemo talks about me. She talks about a conversation she had with my Baton Rouge aunt after the two of them visited us, the Denver clan, the summer before. And what Meemo said was that they agreed: "Alta's got a daughter, child."
Well, the first answer is that it's my mom's group. She didn't start it, but she was one of the original soup-makers, three years ago now, and she participated in Soup Group for a year before I started. I was very surprised back then that Mom had gotten involved and stayed so committed to this volunteer project. It's hands-on work, the soup-making, and Mom's volunteer (and professional) contributions have always been much more administrative or managerial. She served on the vestry at our old church, for example, and when I was growing up, it seemed that most of her volunteer obligations were in the form of oversight and planning committees.
Soup Group is straight-up manual labor, dude. It's (at least) three hours on your feet, crying onion-chopping tears, flushing red from the heat of the stove. Now, it ain't heavy lifting, for the most part, and it's largely risk-less. No one has lost a leg at Soup Group, or even, thankfully, been burned badly. But it's tiring.
So why do it?
Following in no particular order, are my top ten reasons for doing Soup Group:
10. I'm learning so much about cooking! Cooking from scratch, cooking with more experienced cooks, cooking in bulk quantities. I feel enriched by my growing knowledge about something I love so much (i.e., food).
9. Soup Group is woman time. Soup Group is a female space, with the occasional male volunteer hour simply serving as the exception that proves the rule. So I get my girl talk and that camaraderie for the morning.
8. I enjoy spending time with my elders. The rest of the Soup Group is made up of ladies much closer in age to Mom than to me, and none of us pretends anything different. I like how they boss me around. I like to hear their stories and their perspectives, which are different than mine. I especially like to have all this go down in a kitchen environment. Reminds me of time spent with Meemo, with Grandma.
7. My participation in Soup Group is a concession to God, who maybe would like to see me "in church" more often. This way, I'm technically "in church" every week for Soup Group. No, I'm not attending service, but I do feel like I'm following the letter, if not the spirit, of some law (that still matters to me, apparently)...
6. I feel good about supporting the clinic in Baghdad. If there's war and destruction taking place in my name, I want to be intentional about something positive happening in my name as well. And if our soup proceeds are meager while the destruction is great, then at least I can say that the soup proceeds came from my heart and my hands, which you can't say about the destruction.
5. Our soups build community among the church parishioners. While we're cooking, the priests and the Sunday School teacher and people attending Bible Study all pop in the kitchen to breathe our fragrant air and find out what's the soup of the day. On Sundays, (I hear tell that) people are reminded about the soup during the service, and discuss it during reception. "We" give updates to the congregation on how much money has been sent, and we read aloud the notices and post the pictures that we receive from the clinic. It's a shared effort.
4. It's a neat group of women. Sher always has a joke; Mom hums and sings to herself; Rhondda brings an almost businesslike, level-headed practicality; Elizabeth is wonderfully direct; Irene feels like a good friend; Jody is subtly perceptive and so kind. I like how diverse our personalities are, and how similar our values. I like that we manage to make decisions through an informal (if sometimes grudging) consensus. I like hanging in there together with them.
3. Nobody besides me wants to do the recipes! They'd be willing, in my absence, to do the selection and conversions and inventory and list-making. I'm not saying it wouldn't happen. But they're really glad they don't have to.
2. Volunteering is the right thing to do. When my mind elects to wander over the territory of my faults, community service is conspicuously absent from the landscape. I get to tell myself I'm doing some good.
1. It's one more way I get to spend time with my mom. I love her.
